Traditional office furniture design has for many years been based on a concept known as "the wall". Essentially, this concept relies on the use of walls or partitions for defining the configuration of the office; work tops and accessories such as filing cabinets, racks, drawers, etc. are supported from the walls or partitions. While work station designs based on this concept have been widely used in practice, such designs have inherent limitations in terms of flexibility. Walls or partitions must be used throughout the entire desk system eve where they may not otherwise be required. In other words, the essential requirement for walls or partitions at least to some extent dictates the overall form of the desk system.
European Patent Application No. 79301116.4 (Publication No. 6707)--Hauserman discloses an example of an office furniture system based on the "wall" concept.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,748,913 (Favaretto and Hayward) discloses a desk system which represents a radical and fundamental departure from the "wall" concept. The Favaretto et al. invention employs the desk as the essential element of the furniture system and relies on the desk to support partitions, screens and other accessories. The desk design disclosed in the patent allows a number of similar desks to be linked together to define the configuration of the office. The desk incorporates wiring that can be used to bring power, telecommunication and data services to the individual locations on the desks where these services are used. A desk system of the form disclosed in the Favaretto et al. patent has been marketed successfully for some years by the assignee of the present invention, under the trade mark POWERBEAM.